CHAPTER XXXI

The election was over. Lord Liverpool's Tory Party had won, against all indication and in defiance of popular opinion. A victory party was called at the Foreign Secretary's town house; in spite of the short notice, a surprising number of Lords and MPs were able to attend. Lady Matlock spent every second of the five-minute carriage ride smoothing out her gown and ensuring her necklace was positioned just so. Her husband, who would remain the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office, sat staring out of the opposite window, paying his wife little heed. The first time he looked at her was to hand her out of the carriage.

"Is it not wonderful!" Lady Castlereagh declared on their arrival, as if both the ball and the reason for it, were a remarkable surprise. Her husband appeared in equally jovial spirits, declaring it must have been this now famous Matlock luck that carried them all over the finishing line. At Mr. Goulburn's instance that she was "still good for dancing for some weeks yet" Elizabeth stood up with him, followed by Lord Castlereagh, then a few gentlemen hand-selected by her hostess on the assurance that it would be "good to make them feel valued, and having their hand accepted by a peer's wife, well, that would do the job splendidly".

Her husband danced just the two sets, one with the hostess, and one with Jane Goulburn – who wore the honour of it across her whole face. When the dance allowed Elizabeth turned her eyes to him to see how he bore the ritual: he looked stoic, as ever. It was only on the final turn that she realised that while she was watching him, he had not once returned her gaze. In fact, he had looked at her just once the whole evening. As she watched him throughout the night, her suspicion gave way to fear, then to anguish. Even in his angriest moments, he had always looked at her – that inscrutable stare from Netherfield; the one that said she confounded and fascinated him more than anyone else in the world.

Haplessly she tried to enter whatever conversation he was in, but no sooner would she join than he would leave – her tied then to that group until propriety allowed her to move on. She caught him finally with Lord Eldon, Lady Castlereagh and some of the members and their wives.

"Ah, Lady Matlock!" A toady gentleman whose name she had forgotten greeted her. "You are just in time. We are taking bets on when the Queen will arrive back in England. Come, you must make your husband speculate. I have fifty pounds on it being within the next fifty days; a pound a day I say!"

"It would hardly be fair sport Lushington," Lord Matlock said, unamused, "given the Home and Foreign Offices have better knowledge of her whereabouts and moods than the Commons."

"She will not come unless she is insane," Eldon added.

"She practically is," said Lady Castlereagh. "Apparently she thought the Whigs had won it! Have you heard that Matthew Wood has been toasting to her? Brougham won't like that; there is quite the civil war going on apparently, over who should advise her. Wood is convinced Brougham intends to make her stay in Europe. He would be doing us all a very great favour if so."

"There is more danger if she binds herself to Wood. He is as bad as Hunt for stirring up a crowd. Pity he has kept his seat. It's a wonder the City could elect such a Radical."

"To think," Lord Eldon said, "we all thought it a great joke when he married her. A twenty-six-year-old German spinster. Even then she was plump and gossipy as a kitchen maid."

"It is said that a marriage made in comedy will often end in tragedy," Lord Matlock remarked.

"Ah, but which marriage Matlock?" Lady Castlereagh cooed with the familiarity of easily gotten wine. "The King will say he has been married to Maria Fitzherbert these past thirty-five years, and so the Caroline marriage is a sham."

"He may say that. The law disagrees." Matlock said, draining his glass.

"Wood wants Edwards tried as a traitor you know," Lord Eldon jumped in, bored of talk of royal marriages gone awry. "I had some hope the election may have fixed that issue for us, but now he is returned we shall have to confront it. Apparently he is planning to table a debate after the executions, to have Edwards' role in inciting the conspiracy brought forwards."

"Executions?" She asked, in as innocent a manner possible. "Surely they must be found guilty first?"

"Do not worry, my dear lady, that is merely a formality. Thistlewood's trial begins tomorrow. After him, I suspect we shall have the rest done by the month's end. No jury will find for them."

"Hear, hear!" Mr. Lushington cried. "And may they rot in the Tower till then."

The fizzy wine made her head swim, and the bumps of the carriage as they rode back upended her stomach. If he knew, he would surely choose this time to berate her. Yet Lord Matlock stayed silent. They had not spoken a word to each other all evening. As Annette brushed out her hair, she came to a resolution. She crossed the sitting room that joined their two chambers and, reaching his door, knocked lightly, took a breath, and opened it. She found him standing over the fireplace, poking at the dying embers. He looked lost in his thoughts. She cleared her throat; he did not look up.

"We have not spoken properly since our discussion on your return."

He kept his gaze on the fire: "I do not recall there being anything we needed to discuss?"

"That is the most you have spoken to me all evening."

He looked to her then, in seemingly genuine astonishment. "Really? Then – I am sorry Elizabeth, I have been distracted."

"Will you not tell me what concerns you?"

He considered her for a moment, before turning his attention back to the fire. "I cannot. You would not understand."

"And I never will, if you do not take the trouble to explain."

"I've no wish to distress you. You should go and rest, for your sake and the babe's."

"You cannot forever use that as an excuse for getting out of difficult conversations," she said bluntly. He kept his eyes fixed away from her. "Very well, goodnight Fitzwilliam."

Author's note: Thanks again to all who have taken the time to read and review. It is really heartening to read how many people are invested in this story.

To address a few of the general comments made on Elizabeth's liveliness: if a woman's disposition is the same at twenty-eight as it was when she was twenty, that would imply she had not grown, which I think does her a disservice. And while the row at Hunsford shows she can give her opinion very forthrightly, the long, awkward afternoons in Netherfield (and, in fact, Hunsford before the proposal) also show that she is quite capable of holding her tongue and using silence to show her displeasure. ("We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room.") I thought it would be interesting to bring out that side of her personality, instead of always leaping to confrontation. I don't think that's a Lizzy we see often in JAFF, but I do think she is there.